IE is useless

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phpdevuk
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IE is useless

Post by phpdevuk »

Anybody else share my hatred of IE and its awful rendering engine? All my sites render perfectly in firefox and everything else, not in IE oh no.

I could beat it with a stick!
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Post by pickle »

Not that I'm trying to champion IE or anything, but are you coding to standards? If so, then yes, let's beat IE. If, however, you're just coding to make your page work in Firefox, don't be surprised that it's not working in IE.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
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Grin

Post by Roja »

I wouldn't say it is useless.

A solid 80%+ of the viewers of almost any site on the web today uses it, so you have to test with it. The reality is, it is the most popular browser, and that makes it useful.

Of course, my apologies-for-the-devil pretty much stop there. They have horribly poor standards support, NO public bug-tracking or reporting system, one-way only feedback to customers about upcoming fixes or features..

The list goes on. Its a monopoly that does little to answer its customers directly.

The rendering engine also causes great harm by bending over backwards to make broken code work! This results in exactly what we have today - an internet full of tag-soup.

It even cripples technologies that would let us move beyond those limitations - its broken support for PNG and XHTML (served with the correct doctype) prevents moving forward.

Useless? No. Frustrating? Immensely.

I'm seriously hoping that IE7 will fix many of the critical issues that hold back the web.. I know my games specifically are limited by IE, and the sooner we can get a version of IE that will offer more support for standards, the better.
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anjanesh
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Post by anjanesh »

Correct - Inspite of that IE is the most used browser - I think 95% even though FF is gaining popularity gradually.

Maybe IE7 will bring it back on track like the way it was before FF became so popular...hopes Microsoft.
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wwwapu
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Post by wwwapu »

But if it really is correct what is said in this post about IE7 being only for XP it takes at least couple more years to get rid of IE6.
If IE7 is standards compliant, then possibly at 2008-2010 we can start making application/xhtml+xml stuff. Three to five years is not that long.
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anjanesh
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Post by anjanesh »

wwwapu wrote:IE7 being only for XP
I dont think Microsoft would be that dumb to jeopardize their monopoly.
Infact after they witnessed FF's growth they may even release Mac and Linux versions too.
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shiznatix
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Post by shiznatix »

altough i definatly hate IE very much since if im going to do anything fancy with css and javascript i have to have a specific code for IE and a specific code for everything else but i have found some bugs in firefox that I dislike but ya, definatly IE is freaking the wrost thing to happen to man kind
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Post by John Cartwright »

[rant]I don't see the point of going on and on about this. Yes I agree IE sucks but people get over it, seriously. This has been dragged on for much too long, lol. I'm sure some of you agree out there (hopefully :roll:).

The bottom line is were going to have to deal with it, as mentioned earlier the majority of the user base uses InterBottleNeckExploder (IE). Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but complaining about how IE sucks is not going to fix anything.

This is like saying Windows or Linux in a Linux forum, everything is biased towards Linux and in our case Firefox. I know many people, although I have encouraged them otherwise to develop using firefox and IE as a backup, but they lead very productive layouts with little or no problem with the poor CSS implementation. Yes IE has it problems, but nothing I have no been able to work around -- much like everything else in this world.[/rant]
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Post by Roja »

Jcart wrote:I don't see the point of going on and on about this. Yes I agree IE sucks but people get over it, seriously. This has been dragged on for much too long, lol. I'm sure some of you agree out there (hopefully :roll:).
Actually, the timeline is Microsoft's creation. They are the only browser company in the world that has not had a major browser update in almost four years (IE6 came out August, 2001!). We've been complaining about it pretty much since then.
Jcart wrote:Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but complaining about how IE sucks is not going to fix anything.
Thankfully, thats not true. The IE7 team was actually formed specifically to address the recurring complaints, and one of the very first announced fixes was for PNG support - an issue that developers have been loudly complaining about ever since IE6. Their blog even stated "We've heard you" - so yes, complaining definitely DOES lead to things being fixed.
Jcart wrote:I know many people, although I have encouraged them otherwise to develop using firefox and IE as a backup, but they lead very productive layouts with little or no problem with the poor CSS implementation.
Sure. If it wasn't at least "almost good enough", it wouldnt be at 80%+. However, there *is* a reason its losing ground fast, and thats because the developers - as Microsoft puts it, the "Architects of change and progress", are ditching it for being outdated, insecure, unprofessional, and ineffective.

Which would also explain why the IE7 team is so directly trying to counter those opinions now. They see the marketshare loss, and desperately want to win people back.
Jcart wrote: Yes IE has it problems, but nothing I have no been able to work around -- much like everything else in this world.
Here's a resource listing virtually every major inconsistency between every major browser, including IE: http://www.quirksmode.org/

I think you will find that the issues have workarounds, but many of them require *breaking* standards to get IE to function properly.

Thats not an acceptable workaround, and thats why Microsoft is trying (way, WAY too late) to fix their problems, and have admitted they are problems publicly.

The only legitimate question is how much they will fix before the release. So far, the IE7 blog hands out details piecemeal, on their terms, and without any real roadmap of what they plan to fix.
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Post by nielsene »

My big worry is that MSIE 7 will still be more or less broken, but they'll close all the useful tricks for fooling it... Ie they'll get compliance with the spec on things that stop the *hack, hollyhack, etc from working, but still do the wrong thing in non-workaround cases...
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Post by imstupid »

I don't know why else out there besides me is mac based, but IE is even worse then. granted, you are talking about such a small percentage of users, but even still - trying to make anything display consistantly is like cliff huxtable's sweaters - all over the place.
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Post by nielsene »

I'm a Mac-head at home, but at least they've stopped shipping MSIE on the new ones so the end is in sight :) I still keep a copy on my PowerBook for when I really want to torture myself though.... almost as bad as NS4 :O
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Post by wwwapu »

HA HAA why not work for the devil? http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/06/06/425800.aspx If I ever had chance to be in IE team, I would make my own rules that work in no other browser. Also crashing and hanging would be multiplied. Ofcourse complaints would be directed to some summer trainee who knows nothing about anything.

That would surely be the sweet life :twisted:
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Post by John Cartwright »

I was sort of rushing my response in my rant, and my head was not where it should be. What I was trying to get across is simply creating threads with the intent to bash it does not get us anywhere. If you want to actively partake in letting Microsoft know about your specific complaints then by all means do it, it's what thousands of people are doing.
Thankfully, thats not true. The IE7 team was actually formed specifically to address the recurring complaints, and one of the very first announced fixes was for PNG support - an issue that developers have been loudly complaining about ever since IE6. Their blog even stated "We've heard you" - so yes, complaining definitely DOES lead to things being fixed.
I'm sure Microsoft developpers do not travel forum to forum seeing if people have problems with their products. Poeple have taken the effort to let Microsoft know. What I was trying to get across is we already do know Internet Explorer sucks the big one. Without people letting Microsoft know there would be no progress and more than likely it would be even longer until the next "compliant" version.

Far to often do I hear people M$ bashing. Perhaps not as much on these forums, but on others that I visit or blogs that I read it gets rather bitter.

Don't get me wrong guys, I completely agree with you but just because I agree doesn't mean discussions should be repeated over and over.
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Post by Roja »

Jcart wrote:I was sort of rushing my response in my rant, and my head was not where it should be. What I was trying to get across is simply creating threads with the intent to bash it does not get us anywhere. If you want to actively partake in letting Microsoft know about your specific complaints then by all means do it, it's what thousands of people are doing.
Just because Microsoft doesn't directly read this thread, doesn't mean it won't have value in creating change.

Microsoft has built a culture and a company around the value of cutting-edge developers. I'll spare the link to the famous Steve Ballmer chant "Developers, Developers, Developers" that lasted for minutes straight, but the point remains.

Microsoft values developers - in fact, developers are the main reason Microsoft has been as successful as it has.

By publicly discussing legitimate problems, concerns, and issues with Microsoft products, we increase the awareness of the issues among developers.

This week alone, three different developers have posted a question here asking why Firefox "is so stupid", when in fact it turned out to be invalid code that IE covered up for, while Firefox follows the standard. That shows an opportunity to educate - many of them did not know that IE was the cause of their problems, and honestly, its counter-intuitive!

By being honest, and not cutting off discussion of valid shortcomings because "We've heard it before", we can not only educate, we can also raise awareness of the real, high-impact problems that IE causes.

We've already had people in this very thread argue that IE's shortcomings can be "worked around", and should just be lived with. Thats a lack of awareness of the extent of damage, and definitely a valid area for discussion.
Jcart wrote: I'm sure Microsoft developpers do not travel forum to forum seeing if people have problems with their products.
Oddly enough, they specifically hired and placed people on the IE7 team known for doing just that. Robert Scoble, a widely known blogger and forum visitor to MANY sites is a key member of that team now. I'm not saying I personally know the name of a MS IE7 team member that visits *these* forums every day, but the argument isn't entirely valid.

The IE7 team does view other forums, and even if not directly, it can generate discussion and buzz that can make it beyond our tiny realm.
Jcart wrote: Don't get me wrong guys, I completely agree with you but just because I agree doesn't mean discussions should be repeated over and over.
If we followed that standard, we'd have to stop discussing OOP, logins, hashes, passwords, sessions, register_globals, php.ini settings..

You get the idea. Just because its heard often doesn't make it less worthwhile to discuss. If anything, the fact that IE continues to cause problems and confusion four YEARS since their last release means that developers that know why *need* to explain it so that we can continue the pressure on Microsoft to improve their browser, and on endusers to use a more functional and effective browser.
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